biteho.com

Captain Marvel is the final step before Avengers: Endgame, and no one can blame you for waiting with baited breath all the way through to the credits. After all, Infinity War concluded with the ultimate tease, as the rapidly disintegrating Nick Fury frantically sent a page to who we could only assume was the still-not-officially-introduced Captain Marvel.

With her movie finally here, this is do-or-die time, and our last real chance to get some information before the final showdown with Thanos happens in Avengers: Endgame this April. These may be the most highly anticipated post credits scenes in MCU history for that reason alone–and we’re happy to make sure you’re getting the absolute most out of them.

That said, there are obviously spoilers to follow, so proceed with caution if you’re the sort of person who wants to head into either Captain Marvel or Endgame totally blind.

There’s a pretty major time jump between the final scene of the movie and the first post credits scene–all the way from 1995 to post-Infinity War. We’re not exactly sure how long post-Infinity War, but we have to assume it’s relatively soon thanks to the presence of Steve’s beard (while Cap was fully bearded when Infinity War ended, he’s been clean shaved in both Endgame trailers so far). So, right after Infinity War is where we join Steve, Nat, Bruce, and Rhodey in the Avengers compound for Captain Marvel’s first of two post-credits stingers.

There are several important things to note here. One, they’re monitoring the situation in the post-Snap Earth as best they can–but, as Steve points out, it’s a “nightmare,” and they’re not really getting anywhere. Two, they’ve found Fury’s pager, and and they’ve been monitoring it for some time. How exactly they found it after it was just left on a random street in New York is pretty unclear, but we’ll give Fury the benefit of the doubt and assume his car had some sort of tracking device they were able to follow in order to investigate his disappearance once they left Wakanda. Regardless, they’ve got the pager and they’ve been running it nonstop–but they have no idea what it does, so they’re playing it relatively safe and keeping the whole thing under wraps.

But that doesn’t actually seem to matter all that much because–surprise!–just as they’re starting to debate whether it’s worth trying to send the mysterious signal again, Carol shows up. That’s right! One second she’s not there, and the next she is, right smack dab in the middle of the Avengers compound, which she apparently infiltrated instantly and in complete silence. So that’s how Captain Marvel arrives on Earth–one major question down, about a million more to go.

The most striking thing about Carol’s sudden arrival is that, assuming we’re right about the time elapsed between this moment and Infinity War, this means Carol actually shows up pretty early on in the process–in all likelihood, before the footage we’ve seen in both the Endgame trailers. So where was she during the trailers? Will she actually have a role in the team’s plan to save the world like we all assume she will? Or is there something else going on?

More importantly, if Carol isn’t the lynchpin of whatever plan Steve and co are cooking up, who or what is?

The scene doesn’t go on long enough to give us any real answers–we don’t get to see how the team reacts to Carol or how Carol reacts to the team, what that dynamic will be like, or if they’re even able to trust each other under the circumstances. Looks like we’ll be waiting until April for that.

Enter Goose

The second post credits scene is, unsurprisingly, a gag bit–sort of in the vein of Ant-Man & The Wasp’s giant drumming ant, or Guardian’s Howard the Duck cameo. We see Nick Fury’s desk with everyone’s favorite Goose, coughing up a “hairball” while Nick isn’t around. Of course, the “hairball” is actually the Tesseract, which Goose swallowed earlier in the film to keep it away from Yon-Rogg.

Now, there might be some confusion about this scene, since Nick’s absence makes it actually look like the scene might be set post-Infinity War at first glance. But it’s not, don’t worry. Notice the giant, clunky CRT monitor on Nick’s desk? This scene is definitely still in the ’90s, long before Thor picked up the Tesseract in the first Avengers film. So put those tin foil hats away–Thanos destroyed the Tesseract and got the Space Stone for the Infinity Gauntlet. Goose wasn’t somehow keeping a bonus Tesseract secret from everyone all this time.

…Unless he was? In the comics, Flerken have the ability to access pocket dimensions, which could mean that, if the Russo Brothers totally ran out of ideas, he might actually be able to access some alternate reality version of the Infinity Stones and spit one out.

Probably not, though. But it might be something to keep in mind if you want to get deep, deep into the conspiracy theory well before April 26. You’ve gotta pass that time somehow, right? And we certainly won’t judge you.

Chances are, even if you’re not super familiar with Marvel comics, you could maybe cite some facts about the Skrulls. They’re one of the most iconic fictional alien races in pop culture, from their weirdly ridged chins and green skin to their ominous ability to shapeshift into just about anyone. They’ve been a major thorn in the side of virtually every Marvel superhero team since Fantastic Four #2 back in 1962, and for good reason. Traditionally, the Skrulls have always been seen as an invasive and destabilizing force–they invade planets in secret with their shapeshifting powers to infiltrate and later overtake whole worlds by turning friends on one another and allowing paranoia to do most of the work for them.

Sounds pretty devious, right? So it’s no wonder that fans have been clamoring anxiously about all the new potential threats the Skrulls could represent in the MCU, now that they’re being officially introduced in Captain Marvel. Except, that’s not exactly how things actually panned out in the end. We were ready for just about every possible Skrull-related twist, from the reveal that beloved characters like Black Widow have actually been Skrulls this entire time to a full scale Secret Invasion-based storyline. We weren’t, however, prepared for what we actually got.

Captain Marvel turned the idea of Skrulls on its head–and this changes everything we thought we knew about the future of the MCU. Obviously, we’re getting into spoiler territory here, so consider yourself warned.

The major revelation of Captain Marvel was that Talos, the Skrull “leader” and assumed villain of the movie, in fact was not a villain at all–he, and his people, were victims. Yon-Rogg and the Kree were the bad guys all along, hunting down and massacring the Skrulls after they refused to submit to Kree rule. This, in and of itself, isn’t totally shocking–in the comics the Kree/Skrull war is a pretty infamous storyline that revolves around the endless conflict between the two alien races. The major difference is that, in the comics, the lines between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” aren’t so clearly drawn–both the Kree and the Skrulls are villains, they just so happen to be villains who are fighting with one another.

Not so in the MCU. Captain Marvel makes it perfectly clear that the Skrulls are actually anything but evil this time around–at least, not that we can see. There is absolutely no evidence in Captain Marvel to suggest that the Skrulls have done anything truly villainous, which puts us in an interesting position moving forward.

If the Skrulls aren’t evil, conniving spies, what exactly are they? It certainly doesn’t mean that there haven’t been Skrulls hanging out on Earth for all these years, but it does drastically alter the stakes. For instance, if we suddenly learned that Natasha’s been a Skrull this whole time, it would just be a quirky little character detail now, rather than a major, mind blowing revelation.

It also significantly reduces the chance of a live action Secret Invasion adaptation–a comic book event fans have been clamoring for since the Skrulls were first confirmed for the big screen. In Secret Invasion, the Avengers were devastated as they uncovered a conspiracy by a Skrull princess named Veranke who simultaneously undermined virtually every hero team in operation by placing secret double agents in their midst. Fans assumed that, by seeding the Skrull history back as far as the 90s in the MCU, a potential Secret Invasion-style story with a covert population ready to rise up and attack in the modern day was all but inevitable–but that probably won’t be the case. After all, there isn’t much of a threat behind groups of refugees hiding in plain sight to escape violent, tyrannical rule.

Good Skrulls aren’t a totally new concept for Marvel. The lines between right and wrong for both the Kree and the Skrulls have always been pretty murky, and defectors from either side have cropped up time and time again to side with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The same way heroes like Mar-Vell, Carol, and Noh-Varr of the Avengers are human-aligned Kree, characters like Hulkling (of Young Avengers fame), the Cadre K (a group of X-Men adjacent aliens), and Xavin (of the original Runways) have all been human-aligned Skrulls. Of course, these characters’ choices usually put them directly at odds with the imperatives of their homeworlds, but, hey, at least they’re on our side, right?

Of course, none of this means the Skrulls can never be villains in the MCU. Talos and his group of survivors represent only a small sector of the scattered Skrull population–in his own words, “this is just the beginning–there are thousands of us separated from each other, scattered throughout the galaxy.” This means there could be radical Skrull factions out there somewhere who are less interested in slipping away into a peaceful life than Talos was.

So, will we see a group of Skrulls come storming in to stealthily attack the Earth sometime in the future? Maybe. But are there secretly groups of Skrulls hiding on Earth ready to pounce at the slightest provocation, who have been covertly destabilizing our favorite heroes since the very beginning? Probably not. And since that makes the MCU’s future all the more unpredictable, maybe it’s a good thing.

If you’ve been following Captain Marvel’s promotion at all, there’s a good chance you know about Goose the cat–he’s easily the MCU’s latest breakout star, despite being, well, at cat. He even got his very own character poster right alongside Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson–not bad for someone who can’t actually speak and doesn’t have opposable thumbs.

But the truth about Goose is actually a little weirder than what you might assume. Sure, the internet loves cats, and the MCU has been sorely lacking in plucky animal companions since Rocket was introduced back in Guardians 1, but Goose is actually a lot more than meets the eye–and way, way more than a mascot for Carol and Nick’s fun buddy cop adventures through the ’90s.

Here’s your obligatory spoiler warning: Major Captain Marvel plot points discussed below.

The truth is Goose is no ordinary cat–he’s actually not a cat at all. Like his comics counterpart, Chewie, Goose is actually an alien known as a Flerken, a funny name for a monster that is really anything but.

Introduced fairly recently in Captain Marvel #1 back in 2014, Flerkens are a sort of dangerous alien creature that look shockingly similar to Earth’s cats, but are in fact deadly, monstrous eating machines that procreate by laying over a hundred eggs at a time and can run the risk of infesting any area they call home. They’ve got tentacles in their mouths, voracious appetites, and stomachs that contain “pocket dimensions” that allow them to consume things much larger than their bodies without issue. In a weird way, they’re almost like Star Trek’s infamous Tribbles–but a bit more deadly and sly.

A Flerken infestation could prove deadly if left unchecked, which is why most people who know what they are and how to spot them react pretty violently to them–or, they just try to get as far away from them as possible. It was Rocket Racoon who first realized the truth about Chewie in the comics–which Carol herself vehemently denied, until he was proven right a bit later when we saw Chewie in a nest of all his Flerkhen eggs.

The movie handles Goose similarly, with Talos filling the role of the Flerken-spotter. Our confirmation of Goose doesn’t come from a nest, however, but a starring role as the heroes’ catch-all secret weapon, using his tentacle mouth and interior pocket dimension to not only kill a handful of Kree soldiers, but also to spirit the Tesseract back to Earth unnoticed.

The biggest question for the MCU is how, exactly, did Goose end up on Earth in the first place? He’s not given any real origin story, and instead just shows up at the Project Pegasus base as Nick and Carol work to infiltrate it. The simplest and most obvious answer would be that Mar-Vell herself brought Goose to Earth while she was undercover, but what has he been doing for all this time since Mar-Vell’s death and Carol’s disappearance if that’s the case? Protecting the Tesseract? Sneaking food and shelter from SHIELD? Just getting really into being treated like a house cat? And why would Mar-Vell bring a Flerken to Earth to begin with?

Who really knows? It’s possible we haven’t seen the last of Goose–or, at the very least, of his little Flerken relatives. He was on Earth for an awfully long time unsupervised, and if he’s anything like Chewie, that means there’s probably a big Flerken nest somewhere hidden on the Pegasus base. Maybe they’ve already hatched and there are hundreds of unsuspecting humans out there unknowingly caring for eldritch aliens.

What if the Flerken are the real invading force we all thought the Skrulls would turn into? Watch out, Thanos, there might be a new big bad in town.

Probably not. But maybe. Listen, they’re a cat with other dimensions in their stomachs. They can eat Infinity Stones and hack them up like hairballs. Tell me that’s not at least a little bit terrifying.

One of the most-anticipated upcoming games, Cyberpunk 2077, is coming to E3 in June, but you don’t have to wait that long to hear the developers talk about it. PlayStation has posted a new “Creating Cyberpunk 2077” video in which developers from CD Projekt Red discuss some elements of the long-in-development first-person RPG.

Miles Tost, one of the game’s level designers, speaks in the video about why CD Projekt Red has kept so quiet about Cyberpunk 2077 over the years. He explains that video game development is an “iterative” process, which means things change all the time. That’s just how development works. And it seems CD Projekt Red is more interested in waiting until it has something great, polished, and refined to show.

“The reason why you can’t really go out and show everything is because video game development is such an iterative process,” Tost says. “What we have now might not be there tomorrow. We’ve had ideas that have died over the years then they’ve been resurrected then they’ve died again and now they’re back.”

It’s also confirmed in the video that Cyberpunk 2077 takes place 50 years after the source material and on a parallel timeline, which affords the studio another level of freedom to do new things. You can watch the full video in the embed above.

Cyberpunk 2077 was re-revealed at E3 2018 last year, and a 48-minute gameplay trailer left a lot of people very impressed. The game promises a nonlinear story designed for “mature” players and is set in the metropolis of Night City. According to CD Projekt Red, it will have some sandbox elements and a form of multiplayer.

However, CD Projekt Red has stressed that Cyberpunk 2077 is a “true RPG” and definitely not a multiplayer shooter. There’s no confirmed release date, but the game will come out for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

The game is set to show up again at E3 2019 this June, but there is no word yet on what more we’ll see or learn about the long-in-development game. Keep checking back with GameSpot for more.

You need a javascript enabled browser to watch videos.

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.

This video has an invalid file format.

Sorry, but you can’t access this content!

Battlefield 5‘s battle royale mode, Firestorm, has leaked online ahead of its release this month. What appears to be the mode’s tutorial video has appeared online.

As the video explains, Battlefield V’s Firestorm will have Solo, Duo, and Squads options. As with other battle royale games, rounds start with players dropping in from above; in this case it’s with a parachute. Players must then find weapons and other items on the map and use them to be the last player standing. There are three tiers of weapons: Common, Rare, and Epic.

As with other battle royale games, ammo isn’t always easy to find, so you will need to manage your inventory and share with teammates in Duos and Squads to survive and win.

Another interesting tidbit is that downed players can still fire their sidearm, while teammates can revive them. However, there is no true respawning like in Apex Legends.

It was already confirmed that Firestorm is developed not by main Battlefield studio DICE but rather another EA-owned studio, Criterion. Unlike Fortnite and PUBG, which support 100-player battles, Firestorm allows for up to 64 combatants. It’s also worth noting that Battlefield’s trademark destructible environments are featured in Firestorm, as are its tanks and other transport vehicles.

EA seemingly responded to the Firestorm leak, which originated on Reddit, with a cryptic video that appears to be teasing the battle royale mode and the source of its latest leak. It shows a ring of fire closing in on a squad of soldiers, while the tweet is captioned with the emojis for “fire” and “storm,” so yes, this is surely a reference to Firestorm. Not only that, but the voice in the video very much sounds like DICE’s Lars Gustavsson.

Battlefield 5 sold more than 7 million copies, but overall it failed to meet EA’s commercial expectations. Firestorm will be EA’s second new battle royale experience in as many months, as Respawn launched its free-to-play battle royale game Apex Legends in February.

In other Battlefield 5 news, the game recently added the fan-favourite Rush mode–but only for a limited time.